I'm looking to do some tinkering with rubidium time sources. It seems that the rubidium lamp is the toughest thing to get. Does anyone know where one can buy rubidium lamps for this type of thing? As I understand it, they don't need to have electrodes on them, just the rubidium in a gas state.
Mike
Don't know, but why would you want to tinker? It seems the Rubidium stuff has been widely used for different things. I used to play with the Cesium and Rubidium standards at a tracking station. The thing about time standards, the near term sability is only as good as a good xtal oscillator. Atomic standards are for long term stability.
greg
You can get complete 10MHz rubidium standards on eBay for very reasonable prices ($100-$200). Taken from cell phone base stations, I think.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
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